False Memories - Pathihis Research

False Memory Trait - study set up

• Description

  • Put two people through memory distortion experiments

• Memory distortions

  • Misinformation test

  • Non-existent news footage

False Memory Trait - Results

• Misinformation effect

  • groups who received misinformation had more false memories

• Non-existent news footage

  • Produced memory distortion in 1 in 5 people

  • Source misattribution

    • may have seen a plane crash just not this one

False Memory Trait - Generalisability

• No false memory trait found

• Individual differences

  • very low correlation of traits and false memories

    • low critical thinking had more false memories in misinformation

    • higher fantasy prone had more false memories in existent news footage

• Personality variables didn’t predict memory distortions

False Memory Trait - Practical Implications

• Legal system

  • Don’t use false memory experts to determine susceptibility

• Therapy

  • Don’t use false memory tasks to assess false memory susceptibility

• Just assume everyone is susceptible to memory distortion

Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) - Study

• 20 HSAM and 38 (gender and age) matched controls through a series of memory distortion procedure

  • DRM word list

  • Misinformation experiment

  • Non existent news

  • And two others

Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) - Results

• DMR word list

• HSAM’S had at least 8 false recognition out of 20

• Misinformation

  • HSAM’S had more false memories

    • Fantasy prone may be the reason for this

• Non-existent crash footage

  • HSAM’s scored similarly

• Summary

  • Despite their superior autobiographical memory they are vulnerable to memory distortion

  • Point us in the direction that normal cognitive mechanisms underlie memory errors

Sleep and False memory

• Results for a study show that those who had less sleep had higher false memory rates (misinformation effect)

  • May not be significant

Age and False memory

• Study found that adults over 65 tend to shoe higher false memory rates than young adults but effect size if moderate